McConnell: No regrets over relying on Planned Parenthood videos

Attorneys for Daleiden and Merritt said the indictment came from “a runaway grand jury” acting contrary to the law.

Anderson also said the grand jury cleared Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast of any wrongdoing with relation to the videos.

The first count charges them with attempting to purchase human organs, a misdemeanor charge.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said Wednesday that he has no regrets about relying on undercover videos targeting Planned Parenthood to criticize the organization now that the videomakers have been indicted.

“Six months after these revelations broke, Planned Parenthood still can not deny that the shocking and indicting words on the videos were spoken by its own senior level leadership”, he wrote.

In response, Planned Parenthood slammed the videos as “deceptively edited” and accused the conservative organization of creating a “smear campaign”.

A grand jury’s decision to indict anti-abortion activists in a bogus undercover video case will ideally cause others to reconsider politicizing a complex issue. However, no evidence was provided to back that claim.

But Josh Schaffer, an attorney for Planned Parenthood in Texas, said on the Tuesday press call that the district attorney’s office had “created a firewall” to make sure that the prosecutor affiliated with Planned Parenthood was in no way involved with the investigation. “As I stated at the outset of this investigation, we must go where the evidence leads us”.

It was not written into law, he adds, to investigative journalists who are themselves exposing potential criminal activity.

Republicans, however, have largely vowed to push on in their efforts against Planned Parenthood.

“Planned Parenthood’s are probably not going to close based on the fact that they didn’t close when the state funds were taken away”, Marnon said. “As the dust settles and the truth comes out, it’s become totally clear that the only people who engaged in wrongdoing are the criminals behind this fraud, and we’re glad they’re being held accountable”.